31.12.11

The Kell Hounds are supposedly the best known and most succesful mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere. They've taken part with their two regiments in all the biggest clashes since the Succession Wars and they've played pivotal roles in them. I chose them as my merc unit mostly because they're well-known. Maybe at some point I'll set up that very german Merc unit that works for the Lyran Alliance... We'll see how it goes and how much time I have for all these ideas of mine.

28.12.11

7th Crucis Lancers is a unit that I chose to represent the Federated Suns mostly because of its paint scheme. I guess I should or could paint a few more of these. And in the heavier side of 'Mechs, again.
In any case: these 'Mechs look a lot better than all the different Davion Guards that look like walking french flags.

23.12.11

The Third Army of ComGuards is best known as the opponents of Clan Jade Falcon in the Battle of Tukayiid. I don't intend to paint that many of these chaps because white 'Mechs are a bit boring in the end. Though I could paint another Lanceful just in case, but using a bit heavier 'Mechs in that one. Maybe.

21.12.11

The Death Commandos are a very special unit in the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces and one of the most feared unit in the Inner Sphere. As opposed to all the other units in the CCAF, the Death Commandos don't have any other logos besides their own units' logo.
At this point I think I'm fine with a Lanceful of these but maybe I'll paint another Lance at some point. I'd just need to come up with three 'Mechs to go with a Raven.

19.12.11

I took a few pics with a gaming background just for the fun of it, of both the Summoner and Hellbringer. They look pretty nice if you ask me.
May the Summoner enjoy the spotlight alone today, the Hellbringer shall enjoy it its own turn tomorrow.

12.12.11

This is how easily and nicely landscaping is done: apply some white glue on the base and then dip it in the handy Woodland Scenics Ballast. Ka-ching! Now they're a bit different from both the earlier plasticy Inner Sphere 'Mechs and the metallic OmniMechs I built and painted years ago. As we remember clearly, those got an equally simple surface of sand + foliage.

It doesn't make any difference, I just wanted to try and see how that Ballast stuff looks under the 'Mechs :)

After a short while of letting the glue dry I applied a couple of new spots of it on several ugly-looking holes. Then I pushed a tiny fleck of foliage to cover the points of failure. Plus a couple of fake bushes were added here and there over the bases to give them a bit more of a look.
Because of the vegetables and the general grey tone of the 'Mechs it didn't make any sense to go and paint the ballast coating gray like I did with the Imperial X-Wing project. This way these tin cans have some warmer colours around them, even though the war is cold, cruel and it never changes.

The following few weeks my posts will contain more or less revisits on already built things like the IS 'Mechs and whatnot, because I shall not be posting anything while I'm on my winter holidays.. And I'll post even less while we're moving.
There's always no time to build and paint but we'll get to it - in a new apartment, with a new calendar and new Projects 8)

7.12.11

The latest advances in this project have been small but at least they're home made. I had dug up one of the metal hex bases I have bought a bunch of years ago from my stash. That I used to draw an outline for two bases on a sheet of polystyrene and then I sliced them off.

After pondering a while I decided that a lonely flat base doesn't cut it so I measured six new slices for the raised edges and tried to trim them to shape a bit while gluing them on. For some weird reason the end result didn't look as awesome as I had thought :p In any case, I test fitted both Omnis on the base and I noticed that while the Summoner stood there nicely, Hellbringer didn't exactly sit well on its place. Maybe that's because of the different angles of the Omnis' feet and their own tiny bases, which makes their feet fit on just a tiny bit differently from each other.

Oh well. For the other base I cut slightly smaller edge pieces. They fit very nicely and looked better in general but they left small gaps in the edges. That's not a problem, it'll be easy to fix!

As anyone can see, my scratchbuilder's skills are very untrained and underused so all the edges were rough and bad-looking. I spent quite a moment filing all the outer edges flat(ter). This material is at least workable on so I didn't even need to swear while working. Or take out the Dremel.
This made them look slightly better, in my honest opinion.

To finish up nicely I painted the visible surfaces with Tamiya's Flat Brown. After it had dried up I glued the 'Mechs on the bases. I think they're just fine.
Next I'll fill the bases and finish the BattleTech IntroBox Project!